GEORGE AND AMAL: SURPRISE TWINS! The A-listers are nesting in England ahead of welcoming a son and daughter in June.
George & Amal
The A-listers are nesting in England, ahead of welcoming a son and daughter in June
On the set of his movie Suburbicon late last year, George and Amal Clooney couldn’t seem to contain their happiness. “George and Amal were both glowing,” says a set source. “There were hints and rumours about her being pregnant. She seemed careful with food and didn’t have any caffeine.” During Amal’s several visits to the set, “She greeted everyone with a friendly handshake and a huge smile. She acted very down-to-earth. She didn’t ask for anything and just wanted to hang out in the background. George wouldn’t really let her, though. He would bring her around the set, beam and introduce her as ‘my wife, Amal.’ It was very cute to see how excited he was.”
Several weeks later, the world found out why, with multiple sources confirming to WHO that the international human-rights lawyer is expecting twins—a boy and a girl—in the northern spring. The couple “let everyone in both families know quietly,” says a source close to them. “They’re all very happy.” So ended weeks of pregnancy buzz surrounding Amal, 39, whose relaxed fashion choices of late ignited rumours that she and Clooney, 55, were expecting. While the speculation began at least as early as Jan. 4, when Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper claimed twins were on the way, it appears the couple were only waiting for the perfect moment—perhaps once the pregnancy had passed the critical 12-week stage—before going public. When the time was right, they entrusted close friend Julie Chen, whose husband, CBS network CEO Leslie Moonves, launched Clooney’s career on E.R., to share their joy—and June due date.
“Here’s the truth of the matter,” Chen, 47, who broke the news on her show, The Talk, on Feb. 9, told Entertainment Tonight. “My husband and I saw George and Amal almost three weeks ago and they casually mentioned they were expecting twins. We were all like, ‘Is it a secret?’ and George kind of went, ‘No.’ But we didn’t feel right telling anybody.” However, as more ‘Is she or isn’t she?’ stories began to circulate, Chen wanted to claim the scoop. “I’m like, ‘No, it’s true! ... He said it wasn’t a secret. Let’s break the news!’ I’ve been dying to tell.”
Matt Damon is another Clooney bestie who was in on the news, since at least November. “We were working together last fall and he came up to me on-set and took me aside and told me,” the 46-year-old told the US Today show in an interview that aired on Feb. 10. “I said, ‘How far along are you?’ And he said, ‘Eight weeks,’ and I said, ‘Don’t say anything!’ He didn’t know the 12-week rule. You’re supposed to wait.”
With their secret finally out, insiders are revealing how the power couple are coming to terms with becoming an instant family of four—especially Clooney, who declared in 2006, “I don’t have that gene that people have to replicate.” Today, “He is excited about the kids, but also has the normal amount of nerves that come with being parents,” says the source close to the pair. Adds a family source, “Because he’s waited so long, it has all come very late, but very quickly to him.”
“George is excited about the kids”
In truth, Amal’s love opened up neverimagined possibilities for Clooney, formerly Hollywood’s perennial bachelor. “I wasn’t always completely optimistic about how it was going to work out personally for me. But now I am,” the actor, who wed Amal in a star-studded ceremony in Venice in September 2014, told WHO in 2015. Becoming a dad is the latest, arguably most telling, example of Clooney’s sunnier outlook on life. With that comes trepidation. The couple have already begun to make adjustments—minor and major—to their jetsetting lives. Take a recent getaway to Los Angeles: “In the past, every LA trip has included a motorcycle drive up the coast to Malibu,” says a source. “This time, they used a car to get around. George was acting much more careful.”
Workwise, there are big shifts afoot. On the set of Suburbicon, the crime flick Clooney wrote and directed, he “hinted that he was taking some time off. That was very rare for him because he usually has projects lined up,” says a source close to the couple. And Amal, who has advocated for Yazidi women after ISIS’S genocidal rampage against the religious minority, “stopped travelling for dangerous missions months ago,” says a source.
Nonetheless, June marks the beginning of an unprecedented adventure for the high-flying pair. “George knows how brilliant Amal is in her work and how nurturing a person she is,” says a source close to both. “He knows she will be a wonderful mother.” A family source seconds that, adding that the barrister will make a “fantastic” mum: “[She is] intelligent, loving, funny, smart, nurturing. She doesn’t seem someone who will let kids get away with being Hollywood children.”
As for how she may juggle motherhood and career, Amal gave some clues last November. “Growing up, my mother was definitely a role model. She was always a working woman and someone who is inde- pendent and cared about her career and cared about being independent, but also had balance,” Amal said of her mother, journalist Baria Alamuddin, at the Texas Conference for Women. “That is something that stuck with me.”
As for how Clooney is preparing for his biggest role yet, his friends and family have no qualms. “He’s so smart, he’s so loving. He’s going to be great,” said Matt Damon. “Those kids are really lucky.” Clooney’s mum, Nina, agrees: “I cannot imagine two people who would be better parents.”
Both Amal and Clooney are very close with their own parents: George “will be a great father, because he’s always had a very strong sense of family,” says a long-time insider. “That comes from his father, Nick, and mother, Nina. If you look at it, he’s had a kind of family around him, he’s extremely loyal to friends.” Lately, the pair have been nesting in their renovated historic mansion in the countryside west of London (they also have homes in Italy and the US). Here, they’ve hosted Amal’s mum and dad, Ramzi, and her siblings, including sister Tala, who has twin boys. “Amal dotes on them,” says a family friend.
A few days before her daughter’s big news made headlines, Baria stocked up on vintage children’s books at a second-hand bookstore in Shoreditch. Among her haul: Ladybird and Enid Blyton classics, distinctly English titles for the little lord and lady of the manor to come. It’s a life that Clooney may never have envisaged, but marrying Amal “changed everything in terms of what I thought my future was going to be,” the star told WHO in 2015. “He’s so in love with her,” sums up a family source. “Seeing them together, it’s like looking at a different portrait of his life now.”
“Those kids are really lucky” —Matt Damon